Deeplinks Blog posts about Content Blocking

The Indian Telecommunications Minister met on Monday afternoon with top officials of Internet companies and social media sites, including the Indian units of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, to compel them to filter offensive content. The New York Times reportedthat Minister Kapil Sibal met with executives to discuss the possibility for their companies to create internal mechanisms that would prevent any comments the state deemed “disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory” towards political and religious figures.

On Tuesday, Turkey instituted a voluntary filtering system blocks "objectionable content" when enabled. Users will now have to sign up for the free system with their ISP and select from two levels of filtering: child and family. The original intention for this tiered system was for it be mandatory, but authorities backtracked after widespread protests against the scheme.

Egypt imprisons Alaa, other pro-democracy bloggers

EFF recently highlighted the case of Alaa Abd El Fattah, one of Egypt’s most influential pro-democracy bloggers, who is now serving fifteen days in jail for refusing to be interrogated by military prosecutors. His supposed crime? Accusing the military of having a direct role in the killing of 27 people during a Coptic Christian protest in October. As the Guardian reported, Alaa’s claim “appears to be supported by extensive witness reports and video footage.”

EFF has grave concerns about the health of Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, who has now been on hunger strike for 57 days. Sanad's retrial was scheduled for October 13, but was postponed. Sanad, who was sentenced in April by a military court to three years in prison on charges of insulting the military on his blog, has stated that he will boycott any retrial.

We firmly support the statement made by Reporters Without Borders Wednesday, which reads:

Just three months ago, we at EFF expressed our disappointment with Australia's two largest Internet service providers (ISPs), Telstra and Optus, for agreeing to implement a filtering scheme after a filtering bill from the Australian government failed to pass.